Today I link to something that I did not enjoy reading, just to illustrate a point. It is a truly poor article by one Niles Gardiner in the Telegraph.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100041748/the-world-demonises-israel-once-again/
I point out merely in passing that the first few hundred overwhelmingly negative comments were deleted by the Telegraph. But the real reason I link is the significance of the strapline:
He appears frequently on American and British television and radio, including Fox News Channel, CNN, BBC, Sky News, and NPR.
I bet he does. He has no international diplomatic experience, no knowledge of international law and very little experience of the hotspots of the world. But he is fully armed with the set of opinions those news outlets want their readers to hear.
Absolutely anybody can write this rubbish. Just string these elements together:
Poor little Israel. Threatened from all sides. Nazi Germany. Islamic terrorism. Hamas. Anti-semitism. Brutal Jihadists. Self defence. The right to return. Only democracy in the Middle East. Self defence. Iranian President threat to wipe off map. 8,000 Hamas rockets. Alliance of liberals, commies and islamists. 9/11. Chopping off hands. Subjugation of women. Taliban. Clash of civilisations. Existential threat. Self defence.
I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.
But then I am handicapped by morality.
Which reminds me. Having followed the media coverage of the Israeli action very carefully, have you noticed what seems a complete absence on TV of bona fide experts in maritime law?
Normally live news brings in “experts” at the drop of a hat to fill in the 24/7 broadcasting, but despite the fact that professors of international law specialising in the law of the sea are not exactly hard to find, no TV station has asked one about the legality of the Israeli action.
That is because the martime law community is unanimous that the Israeli action is illegal.
I usually enjoy reading these discussions (maybe discussion is pushing it at the minute) even though I haven’t contributed before but this has got insane! There seems to be little point with some people here engaging with others – you’re talking past each other. Why not try to be constructive?
“The number who died as a result of the conditions they suffered during displacement was larger than the number of Palestinian Arabs then alive.”
So the Palestinians should be grateful that Israel has only killed and displaced a lesser number than Jews under the Nazis? Really? Yes, that’s some perspective.
“I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.
But then I am handicapped by morality.”
Dear me, such arrogance. Would anyone pay for it though, Craig?
By the way, you honestly don’t think the majority of posters on this site are as hackneyed and predictable a bunch of Guardianistas and Respectables as Gardiner is a Foxite?
“I could churn this stuff out easily and be on Fox, Sky and BBC as often as I like. I could pick up a fat salary like Nick Cohen for a weekly column of this stuff, and pocket the Rupert Murdoch TV fees as an extra. I could sit in a think tank. I would certainly be a great deal more qualified, and a great deal more convincing, than Niles pisspoor Gardiner. I write a lot better too.
But then I am handicapped by morality.”
Dear me, such arrogance. Would anyone pay for it though, Craig?
By the way, you honestly don’t think the majority of posters on this site are as hackneyed and predictable a bunch of Guardianistas and Respectables as Gardiner is a Foxite?
Yoni, I’m sure you are a highly intelligent guy. Please engage with Fisk’s and Pappe’s arguments. Since you already know that you’re 100% correct on everything, why, then, do you appear so angry? You should be gnomic, man. Gnomic, like a Buddhist monk. Or a tzaddik.
Nine Dead in the Eastern Med.
Suhayl,
hello! There’s a lot of crazyness about at present, isn’t there?
Michael Petek is the craziest person I’ve encountered in a long time, a genuine religious nutter. Larry from St Louis has not mentioned this so far, which could seem odd, as religious nuttery is usually one of his themes. Michael calls people “June”, apparently not noticing that this is the month, not the poster’s name!
Yoni seems to have chosen the Sanskrit word for female genitalia, the source of all life, as his handle, and rants with obvious hatred about, er, what he sees as other people’s hatred. Projecting in a big way, methinks.
Strange times…
Arty, I am trying to talk with Yoni, but he doesn’t seem to want to talk to me. I can’t think why. I am a very affable Englishman/ Scotsman.
You know the legend of the golem, don;t you? It had everything except speech? Because only God can give speech. Gustav Meyrinck, Prague, 1920s, a contemporary of Kafka, but a very different type of writer.
Let us not be golems, my friends, let us be people.
No, anonymous at 8:57, the point is that there comes a time when the cost in blood and in treasure and in the danger to international peace is so great that recovery of land isn’t worth it.
The ethnic Germans suffered vastly more than the Palestinians in 1948, but they had the good sense to recognise when to stop.
I see a new troll, named Yoni, has appeared. Welcome, Yoni the Troll.
I was thinking Michael Petek likely was not a troll, just a fanatic right-winger, because his posts were long, and the paid trolls are into volume, like Yoni.
Yoni probably is not really thirteen years old. He just acts that way. But Yoni is still reading from last year’s playbook. Hint Yoni–the “anti-semitic” shriek doesn’t work any more. Call home to get the updated list of trolling phrases.
I know, Clark, I didn’t want to point out the ‘Lingam-Yoni’ thing because I thought Yoni might be his real name – as in Yonatan – and he might feel insulted. I don’t want to cause offence, and nor, I’m sure, do you. It is strange times. One might even postulate that Thomas de Quincy was back and was dosing the bloggeristi with liberal doses of the flower. Which brings us back neatly to yoni.
The ethnic Germans knew when to stop? What? For perverted and bizarre logic this really takes the biscuit. Still, I see your point. Everyone suffered more than the Palestinians, so they should just shut up and be grateful they are locked up, under seige, and dispossessed of their own homes and land. so ungrateful those Palestinians.
clark are you saying that
Yoni by another name is still a pussy?
Have you noticed the number of trols that have flooded this board since the murders?
bloody hell,
Oh well, while they are posting here, they are not killing Palestinian children. So it has to be a good thing?
At the risk of incurring the ire of multiple golems, here is another piece, again from the Sunday Independent:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/kidnapped-by-israel-and-abandoned-by-britain-1992518.html
And please, everyone, don’t try to call Jamal Elshyyal, ‘Josephs Goebbels’, otherwise you’ll sound like something out of ‘The Simpsons’. Come to think of it…
The other night I wrote: “Oh look! I’m up to my knees in Zionist trolls”! Well, the flood has expanded, it seems, and yet somehow becomes no deeper.
Woah, Clark, what are you smokin’, man?
Clark,
I think you are being a bit unfair to Larry, because he did object to Micheal’s religous nuttiness on another thread.
Yoni, let’s go one at a time. What have I ever said that makes you think I hate Jews? I don’t, in the least. Back up your accusation, please.
Or could. ‘Yoni’ be a reference to Yonatan Netanyahu, elder brother of the incumbent PM of Israel and (along with multiple murderer, Doctor Baruch Goldstein) iconic Israeli shaheed (martyr)? In which case, where’s Bibi? Incidentally, in Urdu, ‘bibi’ or ‘bivi’ means ‘madam’ or even ‘wife’. Hmn, this is getting freaky. Linguistics is a fascinating subject, no? As Noam Chomsky might say. Oh, I forgot. Noam must be another ‘Joseph Goebbels’.
If this trolling is organised, I feel sort of sorry for the organisers. The call center or wherever all those Firefox 3.6 machines set to Yahoo Search are must be an absolutely horrible place. Ear defenders should be standard issue to the staff who try to keep order, and psychologists made available at shift change, when the support groups convene.
Thanks, Craig, I missed that. Sorry Larry.
Suhayl, I know you’re trying to engage. I just wonder does there come a point when it is better not to bother? I know it is probably more noble to expose lies and propaganda everywhere one finds it, but I seriously would doubt that anyone reading this blog out of genuine interest is taken in by the lunacy that is filling it up. Its a shame because I’ve found the quality of commentary to be of a much higher standard than elsewhere on the net.
Yeah, you have a good point, Arty. It’s always a balance, isn’t it, b/w ignoring an engaging and we’re all human. Thanks for your insight.
Still I suppose its a bit of sport to pass a Sunday night!
I am watching Justin Rose in the lead in the Memorial myself.
Yes there is a point when people shouldn’t bother. And that is why I shouldn’t be bothering.
I have a life that I should be getting on with.
Bye everyone, have fun with the Zionist trols.
Being accused of anti-semitism doesn’t have the sting it used to
And if the trolls and their like insist on devaluing the slur by repeatedly using it inappropriately, in lieu of an actual reasoned argument, that will work against their cause sooner rather than later
because, after that, they really haven’t got much left up their sleeves
The ethnic Germans knew it was time to stop, because the alternative would have been to drown Europe in blood in an endless war on top of the one that had just finished.
But not the Levantine Arabs, oh no! They just have to be the Klingons of the Mediterranean. Just like Ishmael in Genesis 16:11-12.
The tendency to describe everyone who disagrees with you as a Zionist troll is very lazy. It also has the scary effect of de-humanising opposition. They are just trolls, they can be exterminated. Dear social engineers, perhaps it’s time for you to consider these trolls might actually have strongly-held beliefs like yourself?
This is better than The Simpsons. Better than Borat. And that’s saying something.
And on that note, goodnight, good morning and good afternoon! Happy watching, Craig. Arty, good to meet you. Clark, don’t smoke too much of whatever-it-is.
A nightcap, for everyone:
http://vodpod.com/watch/3516930-the-family-scene-through-the-eyes-of-a-lens
Shalom.
Alan Campbell, my comment wasn’t meant to allude to you, just so you know. Regards.